And received multiple down-votes. Perhaps it was a bit too simple, but isn't that not a reason to be down-voted? I tried to find the answer online before asking and I couldn't, so isn't that grounds to ask a simple question?

Unfortunately, it seems that many posters don't know how to use the bus.
– Martin JamesFeb 5 '15 at 21:16

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Now I just look like and idiot. Sorry for wasting everybody's time.
– jhschwartzFeb 6 '15 at 0:57

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You're not wasting anyone's time. There are stuffy people here who have forgotten how they became such "experts". Why would anyone want to go search the net and get copied blog answers. This is my FIRST stop, not my last.
– BeengieDec 8 '15 at 17:24

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No the stuffy people have not forgotten all the hard work and hours and hours of reading and investigation they put in to earn the knowledge they have now. Back in the 80's the internet did not exist, those of us that started learning on our own and that are self taught experts have not forgotten the value of earning their experience. It is the selfish and entitled newbies that have not learned what problem solving, reading documentation for comprehension is what this career is about, that if they continue on this track will be the death of the industry.
– user177800Dec 9 '15 at 4:53

Could someone please close this question? Obviously I made a mistake, but I'd like to not delete it in order to keep this documented.
– jhschwartzDec 9 '15 at 5:04

Yeah, there's a distinct difference between "basic"/"beginner" and "didn't even think about the problem for the amount of time it took to type up the question". Not to mention that Google seems to have several relevant results: google.com/search?q=check+if+not+letter+in+C
– Josh CaswellFeb 5 '15 at 22:19

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Sometimes people want to come here first instead of searching on the net. That should be a good thing to SO users. Sometimes a question is hard to find here even if it has already been asked. Maybe SO needs to work on their search engine and bring up results that have highest votes (with relevance).
– BeengieDec 8 '15 at 17:23

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@Beengie SO is working on their search engine, but thats not really the point here. The issue is not that the asker didn't search enough (though that happens quite commonly) its that they asked a question where the answer is right in the question (assuming you know about logical negation, but if you don't know about that you should ask about that), and logical negation is covered very early in most programming books/courses. In other words, there is such a thing as a question that is too easy/simple to be of value here (as shown by post score)
– BradleyDotNETDec 8 '15 at 22:19

For instance on your answer here. I wouldn't down vote it (not saying you would either). I would find pleasure in that someone was so close to having answered it themselves, which would be an easy answer just to help with the last step. Again (not saying you), but many people here on SO seem like they don't really want to help, but just talk down. Their negativity doesn't encourage anyone, and I think they forgot the time when they knew nothing about programming...
– BeengieDec 8 '15 at 22:25

@Beengie Its hard to strike a balance between maintaining quality (we really don't want a whole bunch of these questions floating around) and blasting a question just because its easy. This problem is one the community in general struggles with, and it leads to people claiming that the more experienced users are overly negative. For the OPs original question, the best result may be to just create a canonical "What is logical negation" post and close as duplicate.
– BradleyDotNETDec 8 '15 at 23:45

Not everyone who is knowledgeable is overly negative. As you can tell I have not asked this type of question or even answered since there will be a bunch of 'experienced' users who will just vote negative for laughs or their own pride. Its a challenge to those who want to learn and first thing that happens is they get blasted instead of led on how to do things. I believe that SO should handle those type of people accordingly..
– BeengieDec 8 '15 at 23:50

@Beengie Can't say that I've seen/experienced that, but maybe I'm just active in the right tags. And SO does handle people whose posts cross the line from negative to offensive (or serial downvote).
– BradleyDotNETDec 9 '15 at 0:16

I like to go to 'newest' and refresh and see the new ones come in... It's educational. There are MANY new users asking bad questions, and they are down voted multiple times with no comments to help them out. Thanks for the conversation @BradleyDotNET
– BeengieDec 9 '15 at 0:19

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I still believe that this was a legitimate question. Looking back, yes, this was extremely stupid. But what can I say? I am a self taught programmer (not yet a good one), and this was never something that appeared on a tutorial for me, but it did appear on the 2nd day of my AP Comp Sci class this year. At the time I did not understand the concept of boolean math, and googling "opposite of isalpha()" or "opposite of functions in c" do not yield an answer to my question. I'm still being struck with the downvotes, even though SO was not my first stop, and even though it was a genuine question.
– jhschwartzDec 9 '15 at 4:14

And please don't just assume I put no thought into the question. When I posted this I already knew this was a harsh community to beginners, and you better bet I read it over for grammar mistakes, and evaluated and reevaluated whether or not I was missing a fundamental concept. Turns out I was, but I did not understand the concept that would let me understand this concept.
– jhschwartzDec 9 '15 at 4:16

@jhschwartz You may have gotten a better response if you asked "How do I use the opposite result of a function in C?". I know I would think that is a far better question (even though the answer is just as simple) if for no other reason than people doing the same search you did would come across the answer.
– BradleyDotNETDec 9 '15 at 17:45